Why Approving Women Bishops is Important for Fresh Expressions

With the current debate in the Anglican Church about whether women should be consecrated to the Episcopate in the UK part of the communion it is rare to see debate that doesn’t just revisit old territory. I don’t think I have previously come across debate around this issue that explores how our leadership structures relate to Fresh Expressions of faith.

David Muir has written an excellent piece for Share The Guide entitled “Why approving women bishops is important for fresh expressions“. It is an excellent, concise and profoundly theologically reflective piece calling to examine the issue of God’s character. I hope you will go and read the whole article so I will merely quote it here. This paragraph highlighted a very important question about the way in which we view the past, present and future and our relationship with God.

God is forming communities of faith within 21st Century British society. He calls those communities to be different, in ways that reflect and reveal his holy character within our particular human cultural setting. But he does not call us to be the same as the peoples he has related to before, as if they were entirely shaped into his will already. If we copy our forefathers in that kind of way, we become merely a people apart, separated from society around in a kind of time warp, a culture trap, with distinctives that for that very reason fail to reveal the heart and character of God in our particular setting.